Before the final offer came, I want to be very clear, my journey wasn’t smooth. I had a few rejections, some interviews that went nowhere, and months of silence from companies I really wanted to join.

I had kept my target list small: only a handful of tier-1 companies. For practice, I gave interviews at 2-3 service-based firms. Meanwhile, I was preparing consistently -

• Followed LeetCode 75 + 150,
• Completed a Udemy DSA course to build fundamentals,
• Read interview experiences from LeetCode + Google’s real-world interview blogs,
• And even got the chance to interview with Google and Amazon during this phase.

JPMC - Where It Started

I had applied to multiple positions on JPMC’s portal without any response. Then suddenly, in early June, I received the online assessment.
The questions were easy - medium and I cleared all test cases, so I was hopeful… but HR never responded, even after multiple follow-ups.
At that point, I thought it was over.

PhonePe - The Unexpected Turn

I initially applied for the SDE role, but it didn’t move. So I applied for the PSE role, and surprisingly got a call the very next day.
Round 1 - Technical

• One LeetCode medium coding question → solved
• Linux scripting + commands
• SQL queries (missed one complex one initially, but solved it after the interviewer reframed it)
  Round 2 - Hiring Manager
• Deep dive into my TCS project work
• A few SQL queries again

End of August, I got the offer.
The package wasn’t high, but **PhonePe > TCS **on my resume, and I wanted to move.
I accepted and resigned.
At this point, I had mentally closed the chapter on all tier-1 hopes.

Then… JPMC Called Back

After months of silence, in mid-September, I suddenly received a call:
“We’re moving forward with your application.”
I honestly didn’t believe something would come out of it. But then the Super Day was scheduled - 3 rounds back-to-back (45 mins each + 15 min break).

Round 1 - Technical Debugging + Coding

• Given ~100 lines of code and asked to find bugs
• Apart from all technical bugs, I found a logical bug too, which the interviewer appreciated
• Then a sorting + pattern-maintenance problem with numeric array - completed ~80% before time ran out(nearly 1 hour long)

Round 2 — System Design
A very standard, commonly-practiced system design question.
(Everyone who has done SD prep has seen this one.)

Round 3 — Techno-Managerial
More technical than managerial - framework choices, scenario-based problem solving, and reasoning.

After 1–2 days, I got the call:
I cleared the Super Day.

Then came team matches - I had two.
Matched with the second team.

And finally… the offer rolled out.

🎉 The Full-Circle Moment
I had genuinely lost hope about getting a tier-1 SDE role during this switch.
I was days away from joining PhonePe when life turned around.
Sometimes things move slowly, silently… and then everything happens at once.
offer details :- https://leetcode.com/discuss/post/7400746/tcs-jpmc-by-anonymous_user-lel7/

Udemy course :- [https://www.udemy.com/course/python-data-structures-algorithms/?srsltid=AfmBOorWLfBMhzsXJRPg6L-CrECFF-57F99EiE3Rr0o9F9_22psrL3F-&couponCode=25BBPMXNVD35]